Shepherd Wizard (Novel) - Chapter 165
Chapter 165
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Discord
Not long after the Zahar family departed, Osel also bid farewell and led his army southward.
Unless something extraordinary happened, it would likely be difficult to meet him like this again in the future.
Perhaps they might never see each other again in their lifetimes.
On the way back, while Turan was quietly lost in thought atop a magical beast, someone poked him in the side.
“Why the gloomy face?”
The culprit was Solif, disguised as an attendant and following him. Since the knights guarding them had moved a bit farther away, ensuring their voices wouldn’t be overheard, his tone was as casual as usual.
“Just… I have a lot on my mind.”
The conversation with Harun had left Turan with much to ponder.
From practical issues to metaphysical questions about the nature of self and existence-things he wouldn’t normally give a second thought to.
Seeing him like this, Solif looked at him with an expression of disbelief.
“Don’t overthink it. If they seem cooperative, leave them be. If they cause trouble, crush them. Simple, right?”
“That’s easy to like.”
Of course, contrary to Solif’s words, how Zahar would act wasn’t such a simple matter.
For now, it was clear that Harun, as the family head, held the family under his authority, but while ordinary nobles might be managed that way, the other gods wouldn’t be so easily controlled.
If some incident caused Harun to lose his body, Talis would dominate Zahar until a proper new body could be secured.
Of course, the likelihood of Harun, who was only about sixty by commoner standards, suddenly dying was low, but…
‘You never know. Who can predict what schemes they might devise?’
Though it was unclear how many god vessels currently existed within Zahar, if they all combined their strength, even Harun couldn’t be guaranteed to remain unscathed.
As long as they could kill him and turn him into a soul, the task of placing that soul into a new vessel required a living person’s assistance. If that person refused, no matter how powerful the entity had been in life, there would be nothing they could do.
Of course, a Zahar without its family head wouldn’t be as threatening, but getting stabbed in the side during a conflict with Arabion-Nagin, Carmine, or the Giant Sea Serpents would be troublesome.
With their unique stealth and tracking abilities, wouldn’t it be incredibly annoying if they spied on every move?
As a truly horrifying example, if someone managed to steal a single strand of hair from Turan’s unborn child and sent it to Zahar, Turan would be rendered powerless from that day forward.
He wouldn’t be able to leave the child’s side for a moment, fearing someone might sneak up.
“By the way, congratulations. You’ve officially been recognized by three great families as a notorious playboy.”
“Damn it.”
Solif grimaced at Turan’s jest, meant to shake off the unpleasant thoughts.
The most discussed topic during this meeting had been about him.
A scoundrel who stole the lady sent as a potential partner for the Head of Parsha, a lecher who coveted his friend’s lover.
Not only were there countless people who witnessed and heard the meeting, but considering how the story would spread by word of mouth, it wouldn’t be long before Solif Baraha’s infamy spread across the world.
A romantic scandal among the heads of great families-what could be a more intriguing topic than that?
Letting out a deep sigh, Solif shook his head.
“Well, I don’t care what others babble about. The most important thing is the truth.”
Back when Lesion had shaped his personality to easily take over his body, Solif had to act like a rigid, etiquette-obsessed person who cared about others’ opinions.
Perhaps as a reaction to that, after being freed, he deliberately adopted the attitude he held now: ‘Who cares what others think? As long as I’m happy, that’s all that matters.’
“Anyway, if I have a child later, I just hope they don’t inherit the Zahar bloodline. The thought of them being raised there is horrifying even to imagine.”
“Ah.”
Come to think of it, there was such a tradition, wasn’t there?
When a child is born between two families, regardless of whether the parent joining the family is male or female, the family they belong to is determined by their bloodline.
As Turan had recently learned, this was a vile custom created by the gods to facilitate the use of soul magic, but it was also a deeply ingrained belief in the minds of all mages.
No matter how much Solif cherished his child, if they bore the Zahar bloodline and he raised them in Baraha, it would inevitably cause a huge controversy.
“Couldn’t you just raise them by force?”
“No chance. Not only would Zahar immediately demand to take them, but even the lower ranks wouldn’t stay quiet.”
While clicking his tongue in regret, Turan inwardly felt relieved that his own child would be far freer from such controversies.
Even if the child inherited the Storm bloodline, they were already at war with Arabion anyway.
If the two families ever spoke of peace, it would be after Badal’s death when Meisa became the head of Arabion, so there was no need to worry about that either.
“Speaking of which, you and Meisa might have a child someday too. I can be the godfather, right?”
“Sure, why not.”
“Given the circumstances, it might be tough right now, but I hope it happens within thirty years.”
At Solif’s words, Turan hesitated for a moment instead of responding immediately.
It was a small gap that others might have overlooked as nothing.
But Solif, who had spent years with Turan and grown accustomed to him, didn’t miss that slight pause.
“…What’s with that reaction?”
“Hm.”
“Don’t tell me, already?”
“It just happened.”
He could lie if he wanted to, but there was no need to do so in a private moment with Solif.
It wasn’t that he hadn’t told him before due to a lack of trust.
Caught off guard by the unexpected news, Solif stared blankly for a moment with his mouth agape before muttering softly.
“No way, with your level of magical power, the chances of pregnancy should be pretty low. Just how much-”
“Got lucky, I guess.”
As Solif said, the probability of pregnancy between nobles with strong magical power was noticeably lower than for commoners.
This was also why, despite all nobles desiring powerful heirs, they often took commoner or knight concubines.
While children born between nobles had much higher potential, if luck wasn’t on their side, they might not conceive for decades.
Of course, it varied case by case, as seen with Melo and Asiz, where noble couples sometimes had siblings born close in age.
For Turan and Meisa to succeed in conceiving within just a few months despite their attempts at contraception was an even more astonishing probability.
“You kept this a secret from me?”
“It wasn’t a secret; I just didn’t have the chance to tell you. You were in Baraha the whole time before this trip.”
“You should’ve told me on the way here!”
One reason Turan hadn’t told Solif was that he had been in Baraha until this trip.
But why hadn’t he mentioned it during the journey for this meeting when there was an opportunity?
“It just felt a bit awkward to bring up.”
“What? Why?”
“Well…”
Since pregnancy naturally required the process leading to it, revealing that Meisa was pregnant felt akin to broadcasting that he and Meisa had been intimate, didn’t it? At this, Solif was momentarily speechless.
For Turan, it was a genuinely serious matter.
Even when he had to inform a few necessary people like Asiz, it had been incredibly embarrassing.
A few seconds later, Solif, who had been holding back, burst into uncontrollable laughter and fell off the horse he was riding.
“Hey.”
“Pfft, ah, please… I’m dying here… What are you, a kid? Well, I guess you are a kid…”
Seeing the attendant following the family head suddenly fall off his horse and burst into laughter, the mages guarding them approached with bewildered expressions.
“Is everything alright, Family Head? Has something happened…?”
“No need to worry. Keep watch around us.”
“Yes!”
At the family head’s chilling command, they flinched and widened the distance again.
Shortly after, Solif, having calmed down, wiped his tears and remounted his horse before speaking.
“Man, I don’t think I’ve laughed this hard in my entire life.”
“What’s so funny?”
“It’s just absurd to see the perfect superhuman who can do anything and shows no emotion suddenly act like a twenty-year-old kid. I nearly died laughing because I couldn’t breathe.”
Compared to commoners and knights, who were sexually conservative, nobles were far more liberated in such matters.
Since they were in the position to choose rather than be chosen.
As such, Turan’s embarrassment at revealing he had been intimate with a woman who was essentially his partner was not just funny but downright hilarious to Solif.
At that moment, Solif, who had been chuckling, suddenly spoke in a serious tone.
“Well, it’s nice, though.”
“What is?”
“Seeing your human side. Not that it’s particularly more noticeable lately, but sometimes you’ve felt distant.”
At Solif’s words, Turan recalled what he had said earlier.
A perfect superhuman who can do anything and shows no emotion.
Turan had never thought of himself that way, but perhaps others saw him as such a being.
In reality, Turan controlled his emotions better than most, rarely showing them, and possessed exceptional talents in various fields.
Over the past few months, as the head of Parsha, he had deliberately projected such an image even more.
“When you only see someone who’s too perfect and exceptional, it’s inevitable to feel a sense of distance. Of course, for someone in a high position, that distance is important, but it’s different for friends or family. Sometimes, flaws are what make a person truly human.”
“Flaws make a person human… I’ve heard that before.”
“Who said it?”
“Lesion, I think.”
“That guy said it?”
At the mention of Lesion’s name, Solif frowned.
Though Lesion was now a prisoner spilling all sorts of information, Solif, who had once been in a position to surrender his body to him, couldn’t possibly like the man.
“Come to think of it, didn’t I tell you this before? When you asked why the leash was put on?”
“Oh, now that you mention it, I think you did say something similar back then…”
Likely, the words Solif had just spoken were an unconscious repetition of what he had heard at that time.
According to Lesion, the first-generation mages born from the gods were incredibly powerful beings.
Each one was born with knight-level magical power from infancy, and by adulthood, they possessed mid-to-upper-tier noble-level magical power without even absorbing any.
However, they all had critical personality flaws, the most significant being that they didn’t see humans as human.
Like Oneil in the past, they would beat humans to death for amusement or use them as toys for all sorts of cruel games.
“The strong find it hard to understand the weak. Someone who has never known heat, cold, pain, or fatigue since birth can’t comprehend or empathize with the struggles of ordinary humans…”
While modern mages are no different from commoners in their early childhood, for the mages of that era, who were superhuman from birth, humans must have seemed no different from insects.
Beings that could be crushed with a mere flick of the hand.
Turan could sense Lesion’s identity as a white elf persecuted by humans in his words that humans could be endlessly cruel to beings they couldn’t empathize with as their own kind.
Of course, since they too had abused and devoured humanity as a different species, they had no right to blame others.
“That’s why, if I have a child, I don’t plan to remove the leash right away. I’ll focus on discipline as much as possible… If I remove it before their personality is fully formed and something goes wrong, it would be a disaster.”
“Is that the way to go? I feel uneasy about it and wanted to remove it as soon as a child is born. I was even planning to ask my parents for advice on how to raise them…”
Solif’s parents, the Baraha couple, had returned to the Baraha main house from their hideout in the western wastelands not long after Solif became family head.
Of course, as the parents of the family head, they no longer resided in a mansion on the outskirts of Helio but instead took up residence inside the Temple of the Sun.
As the two shifted their conversation to the upbringing of their future children, someone ahead shouted.
“We’ve arrived! I can see the walls!”
As they said, the walls of Kalamaf began to appear beyond the distant horizon.
Everyone cheered at the end of the long journey.
* * *
“Anything unusual happen while I was away?”
“Nothing at all. Though, a lot of work has piled up that needs to be handled. I’ve organized some of it, but there’s quite a bit that requires your direct approval.”
“That’s… I’ll check it later. I’m a bit tired right now.”
Upon returning, Turan first received a report from Asiz, the family steward, about what had happened in his absence.
Seeing the pile of parchment stacked in the middle of the office, Turan shook his head.
“There are a few things that need to be done by tomorrow.”
“Alright, definitely. By tomorrow.”
After firmly reassuring Asiz, who was slowly turning into a nag due to his steward duties, Turan quietly asked.
“Nothing leaked about that matter, right?”
“It’s under complete control for now. At the very least, it hasn’t spread among the common folk.”
During his absence, Turan had informed Asiz of Meisa’s pregnancy and instructed him to keep it strictly confidential.
“I’ve even restricted the maids attending to Meisa from going outside. In return, their pay is tripled while they’re inside.”
“Good job. Then…”
“Yeah, go see her. Hurry.”
Though neither his expression nor voice betrayed any anxiety, Asiz seemed to notice it, chuckling lightly and waving his hand.
After parting with him, Turan headed straight to the family head’s quarters, now shared with Meisa.
Passing through the magically sealed main entrance, accessible only to a select few, and down the corridor where only a handful of maids came and went, he soon saw Meisa resting in the bedroom.
“You’re back?”
“Yeah. How are you feeling?”
“Same as usual. It hasn’t been long, and I’m not a commoner, after all.”
While commoner women often suffered from various physical discomforts during pregnancy, even knights found it much easier to manage their condition.
Magical power itself constantly worked to maintain the body in a state aligned with the owner’s preferences, and superior physical abilities meant the child’s weight wasn’t a burden.
Though a bit extreme, as long as the child’s health wasn’t a concern, a noble pregnant woman could run around and even fight as usual right up until childbirth.
“More importantly, how did the meeting with Zahar go?”
“Well…”
Turan recounted everything that had happened during the meeting to the curious Meisa, without omission.
He spoke of the head of Zahar, who was convinced Turan was the reincarnation of the Night Hunter and confessed to harboring affection for him, and of learning about his father through his aunt, whom he met for the first time.
While briefly fantasizing about a dreamy romance upon hearing about Turan’s parents, Meisa’s face turned pale when she learned that hundreds of thousands of lives and all Zahar bloodline fetuses had been sacrificed for Turan’s creation.
“…Is that true?”
“Yes.”
Turan couldn’t easily understand why she reacted this way.
Just moments ago, when she heard that over a thousand mages’ souls had been used to awaken her own talents, she hadn’t shown such a reaction.
It couldn’t just be because the number of souls used was greater.
Seeing Turan’s confusion, Meisa brought up something he hadn’t considered.
“If soul magic can be used on children who aren’t directly under control like that… there’s no guarantee our child won’t become a target too.”
Since the child’s body hadn’t even fully formed yet, it was impossible to know which bloodline’s power they would inherit, though they would likely carry at least one of their parents’.
As she said, if someone used the same method as Harun, the moment the fetus’s existence was revealed, any powerful soul mage could essentially take their life.
Turan quietly looked at Meisa’s face, pale with fear, before gently pulling her into an embrace.
“There’s nothing to worry about.”
The child was in danger because of the existence of powerful soul mages.
If that was the case, then all he needed to do was ensure no such powerful soul mages existed in this world.
Turan recalled the gift Harun had given him not long ago.
The method of combining Zahar bloodline abilities to manifest skills.
During the journey back, Turan had studied it in his spare time and, as a result, gained far more abilities than he had expected.
He also gained the confidence to stand toe-to-toe with Badal, the head of Arabion.
Turan quietly declared his intent to conquer the world.